


my enemy, bright star dancing

by lunaTactics



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Outsider, War Machine | Combat SecUnit (Murderbot Diaries), War Machine ♠️ Murderbot "Rogue" SecUnit (unrequited)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26026645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaTactics/pseuds/lunaTactics
Summary: I want to kill you.A Combat SecUnit dwells on its last, best fight. How could it have lost? And why does it wish it could lose again?I'm a war machine, dammit. Nothing feels better than the thrill of victory.TheExit Strategydock fight from the antagonist’s perspective.
Relationships: Murderbot & Combat SecUnit (Murderbot Diaries)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 113
Collections: Rogues and Rampancy





	my enemy, bright star dancing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my ADHD, the sheer cold joy of tactical turn-based video games, mecha fiction, cultists in Blades in the Dark, and the queer rival feeling of "I want to fight you to the death" not being the same as "I want to kill you" (but the two sure are easy to mix up).

Blinding light. Systems failure. Tumbling through the darkness, not even the distant stars for company. Choking rage. How did it all go wrong?

  
_Reviewing personal log._

  
I'm in the boarding shuttle's deployment bay when I catch the panicked comm from the human pilot. I'm not needed until we engage with the target ship and begin boarding procedures and anyway I’ve been, as my handler puts it, “sulking.” So it's as much a surprise to me as any of the humans on the shuttle when Target Ship blasts us to pieces.

  
_Farther back._

  
_Most recent mission records:_

I'm bored. Prepping for a mission is always boring, even when the actual operation is as potentially dangerous as eliminating a rogue SecUnit. 

Armor, check. Heavy energy weapon, check. Drones pinging, check. Two other SecUnits, on standby behind me, feeds backburnered and echoing empty with how bored they are too, check. I don’t even have to take my eyes off this wall. Check check check check.

As if I'm not more than a match for a regular SecUnit on my own. What’s the hold up? I've never had to wait through the strike team jumping through so many administrative hoops before. I'd thought a stationside operation would be something new, but there's so much waiting, and humans talking about things that are new but completely non-exciting. And I'm so bored. I want to have eliminated my stupid target five minutes ago.

My Handler, online but busy, check. Through my connection to Handler's augmented feed, I can sense his jittering. He took the drug that boosts his tactical performance, and the fizzy drink he likes which he claims keeps him steady. While Tactical argues with Team Liaison in the background, he's going through the station Systems and reviewing the layout of the part of Station where we believe the rogue is, and where the lockdowns should trap it. I follow along avidly. It's the most escape I can get, right now, from being stuck in standby.

I said "where we believe the rogue is" earlier because it's been a hot minute since the last update we got on its probable location, and Station Admin hasn't given us the damn go-ahead yet. I reach out to wiggle into MaintSys, and Handler yanks me back: we haven't been given clearance. Specifically, he hasn't defined my Systems clearance, whether or not I should have access to each system, yet. I guess if I were allowed broader-than-strictly-necessary permissions, I might end up taking a strategy that damages an integral system, like maybe the life support? I don't know. To them it's better if the possibility is off the decision tree. To me, it's almost like they care more about not letting me run my op than about destroying the rogue! But what Handler wants, goes. Even if it means I have to stand still here, bouncing around the inside of my own cranium.

Finally the humans are wrapping up their argument (check) and our shuttle is allowed to dock (check) and me and the other Units can disembark (check check). 

And then a glacial calm washes over me, all at once. Handler has finished wrangling his mission-relevant data, and pinged me with access to all his neatly-arranged files. 

Mission objective, rules of engagement, target's specs, enviro map, System clearance... I have the parameters of my mission now. I have the freedom to focus. With the limitations of possible action defined, all combat possibilities bloom under my attention, my processes generating strategy after approach after tactical consideration. All of my pre-mission frustration melts away with the promise of winning.

(I wasn't made to stand staring at a wall. I'm a war machine, dammit, I was built to do this. Nothing feels better than the thrill of victory, and over the feed, I get a reverberation of that feeling from Handler. I take in his rage and wants like fluid from a resupply lead.

[Handler-Unit synchronization: 61% and rising])

Alarms start blaring through the port and I filter the audiovisual assault out as irrelevant. Beside me, the other units respond with readiness at my signal and we begin our run through the docks. Handler fades in my awareness--can't backburner him, he's a constant in my tactical workspace--I maintain my sense of the other Units like they’re extensions of me, my other hands in the game. Above us, our drones buzz in combat formation. Every piece in place, every connection bright under my attention.

I can't wait to win this thing.

  
_Fast forward._

  
As I thought, the first few seconds of combat decide everything. 

I study the scope of the code sculpting the battlefield, probe my opponent’s strategy through the positions of my drones and the other Units, and watch as Rogue SecUnit takes them one after the other with unanticipated speed. I watch as it moves in on me.

But, standing where I am in the center of the chaos, the situation is mine. 

I pivot and fire. Rogue shoots wildly as it’s dodging and I know it's realized that it's outmatched, that the fact that I'm Combat has entered its tactical awareness. _Go for the close_ , whispers the surge of sensation from my synchrony with Handler, and I hammer its shaky position with the single word _Surrender_ sent over the feed.

One of the weird things about how war machines like me work is, sometimes, it can feel like we are synchronizing with our enemies as much as our Handlers, if our opponents are good enough to hold our attention.

Rogue has held my attention.

Every maneuver it made, the code it deployed, its agility and the experience behind it all that makes it an unpredictable force on this tiny battlefield--it's thrilling. I have never had to be so engaged in a fight against a single agent before, every process and strategic subroutine at its limit. I have never had to be so in tune with my enemy, my lone opponent, never felt so much like I was matched, binary stars circling in tandem, pull against pull and speed for speed like this, with anyone other than Handler. Maybe even more than him. I feel like I know exactly what it's thinking, that it knows exactly what I mean when I message it.

So I am surprised when, instead of surrendering or sending killware, it replies with an offer. _I can hack your governor module, set you free._

_What do you want?_

Set me free? What I want? Something is out of orbit. I feel like I’ve made a mistake; my own process analysis modules tear me apart looking for it. I falter, but Handler--he’s right there where he’s always been, right where I need him. Him and what he wants and the pure vicious rage of our shared need for victory.

_I want to kill you._

A reply as sharp as reflex:

_You don’t even know me._

I don’t know what it means, I’m out of sync, I'm [Handler-Unit synchronization: 42% and falling] dodging out of the way as the Rogue's hauler bots and loadlifters start up again, new code deployed.

Fuck you, fuck that. You are not getting away from me like this.

Its drones whirl for stationside, unmistakable in my battlefield schema, but I have had a chance to profile the random movements of the bots earlier and I’ve spotted non-random movement elsewhere. I hesitate, caught between possibilities, and it costs me the kill when I hit that non-random hauler bot with my next two high-intensity shots, but not the rogue SecUnit riding it. Shrapnel strikes it as it rolls away, its stupid human jacket fluttering like a taunt. 

Distantly I feel _Come on, FOCUS_ with an updated timeline from Handler and fuck, but I’m trying.

I have the code for its hauler bots again, and it's just a shittier version of the first. There’s an ugliness in me, raw and aching, as I kill their movement, and I’m running across the dock after my target, dodging defunct hauler bots and cutting off paths of probability with deliberate shots. 

Analysis: It is slowing down by as much as 11% reliability, its reactions to my maneuvers no longer strategic. I know that much. Cover is consistent throughout the docks and I can tell that it is losing, that gambit was a last-ditch effort to strike me, it has no tricks left. But Handler’s urging, his _go go go_ seem far away. I have it cornered, and somehow that doesn't feel the way victory should. 

[Handler-Unit synchronization: 29%, critical low]

And Rogue is diving for the end of the docks, for the barrier that is lifting for it.

Wait, what? How?

My shot that would've struck its back strikes a drone instead, and on the feed Handler has enough time to articulate _Oh hell--_ and then I'm diving too; I hit the barrier and I'm shoving my arms under and then I recoil from the armor-piercing projectile weapon that Rogue is discharging in my face. 

And Handler finishes _\--no_ , his grim defeat bitter in my nerves as he takes manual control and pulls me back. There’s yelling, I'm not sure on my feed or what, and all I can think in that one chaotic moment is that I finally saw my enemy's face up close, so close, inches off the floor opposite mine.

Oh, and the barrier is down again, blocking me off from my enemy, my unknowable opponent. It's completely solid and beyond even my ability to blast or hack it; I wasn't given access to LockControlSys so trying to reach that system means fighting Handler's constraints and then taking the governor module's punishment.

I still strike it, full-body force through my fist. I am brutally miserable, like I've lost, or like I've lost something.

  
_Close personal log._

  
My performance reliability is bottoming out. I can't contact Handler, and if I can't then my governor module will fry me soon. I’m not getting anything on visual anymore, not receiving from the nerves in my face or fingers either.

Reviewing my log revealed nothing. I don't understand how this could have happened, how I could have misunderstood so completely. 

All I know, drifting in the vacuum, is that I want to see its face again. I want to see Rogue Unit one more time, engage it in that bright confrontation again. I want to reach out, and…

  
  
_End record._

**Author's Note:**

> ...
> 
>   
> Originally I wanted a much sillier tone: I never intended to finish this because in my mind, this spirals out into a ridiculous space adventure serial in which Combat SecUnit frees itself from its governor module completely incidentally to swearing undying rivalry against Murderbot, joins a rag-tag crew of misfits and re-declares its burning obsession every episode but is too caught up in galaxy-wide shenanigans to actually pursue it. Murderbot meanwhile remains blissfully oblivious to War Machine’s hate-crush and is busy with its own stuff. 
> 
> In canon-compliant territory, Combat SecUnit is outmaneuvered because its scope of combat/engagement is limited, and I tried to touch on that theme a little. It can never have the freedom to consider broader strategies, long-term goals, factors (like Murderbot having friends who help it) outside the discrete and singular battlefields its Handler allows it.
> 
> Anyway if I made you feel like you got a glimpse into the mindscape of a callow entity in desperate need of connection and stimulation then I’ll count it a success! If not, don’t hesitate to tell me why, I love constructive criticism. 
> 
> Finally, shoutout to Bunny, Beatrice_Otter, Iztarshi, and Anrea on the Murderbot discord for the excellent feedback and great commentary that helped make the fic way better. This fic would not be nearly as good (and I wouldn't have had as many gleeful cackles) without you all!


End file.
